I'm from Germany, but there are (sadly) only few German movies which were actually successful. All of them are comedies and well known by every German: - Der Schuh des Manitu Short scene with English subtitles - (T)raumschiff Surprise Trailer with English subtitles - Der Wixxer German trailer - Neues vom Wixxer English Trailer I know that none of these movies has a high rating on IMDB and I'm also aware that the prejudice exists that Germans have no humor, but you should definitely check these movies out. I think all of them should be available with English subtitles. Edit: Formatting
Der Untergang Dont forget the downfall! It's German and very awesome.
Brilliant movie, I just reordered a new copy. I really dig how it tells the story for what it was and what it would've been like in the bunker during the final days. It doesn't glorify or excuse Hitler and his actions, but is a pretty raw and more real display of the man and the story.
The Lives of Others is one of the best films I've seen. It's German and was made in 2006. Have you seen it? It's certainly not a comedy. Heartbreaking stuff.
I'm personally a huge fan of Werner Herzog, my favourites being Stroszek, Woyzeck and Grizzly Man. Edit: There seems to be an issue with links. Here they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroszek
No, I haven't seen this one yet. I didn't even know that it was German... I should probably change "all of them are comedies" to "many of them are comedies" - i completely forgot movies like "Das Boot" and "Der Untergang", the ones that I named were only the first ones that came to my mind. I think I'm going to watch The Life Of The Others this weekend - from what I heard, this movie has to be pretty good.
It's a fantastic film. Let me know what you think of it.
Don't forget The Baader Meinhof Complex, directed by Uli Edel. Brilliant reconstruction of 1960's West Germany and the (slightly romanticized) story of the RAF movement.
The best German movie I can think of off the top of my head is Das Experiment One of my all time favorites. It's a fictional account of the Stanford Prison Experiment. I watched it in high school and hadn't learned about the real version yet and got me intrigued about human nature and power trips. It was one of the first movies that really made me think.